Illuminator flashlight has to be seen to be believed. To create the photo above, I put my camera on a tripod and simply began lighting up a number of boats and mooring buoys about 500 to 700 yards away. The beam is so tight I was able to do so without blinding either myself or (hopefully) anyone who was on their boat in the outer harbor of Camden, Maine, where I was moored.

The light runs on three D cells

Powered by three D-cell batteries, the Ultra Long Range flashlight is big—13 inches long—and seems to be heavy enough to take down a large mammal if used as a club. Marinebeam (marinebeam.com) doesn’t make claims about its being waterproof, but I noted the light has a pair of O-rings where the big lens screws on to the body. The rubber-encased switch is on the tail end and cycles between full power, half power and a strobe function that would definitely get someone’s attention if your aim was good.

The heart of the beast is the little LED assembly immediately behind the lens. It uses a technique called Recycled Light Technology (thus the RLT) to multiply and collimate the relatively modest 300 lumen LED chip into a beam with a rated usable range of over 2,100 feet, which might normally take 2,800 lumens to achieve, according to Marinebeam’s detailed write-up.

A comparison of the light with and without the lens

The thick reverse fisheye-style lens also has something to do with how far the Ultra can throw light, as shown in the photo above Without the lens, the flashlight appears to have a fairly normal conical beam, but evidently the lens works with the RLT to produce that highly focused spot. Note that with the lens on, even that bit of light on the table is not spillover, but rather a reflection from the white board. Note, too, that the ability to collimate 300 lumens so tightly is why this flashlight can purportedly run 12 hours at full power on three fresh D cells. According to Marinebeam’s resident geek, Jeff Field, RLT is also why this sort of long-range spot beam will eventually come out in smaller, less expensive flashlights and may also work well in a high-power pan-and-tilt marine spotlight (stay tuned for more on that).

The super-sharp beam shining from 10 feet away

I had fun trying to photograph the Ultra’s special properties. Above is another composite image showing the LED to the right and, to the left, what the Ultra beam looks like once it’s 10 feet or more from a white surface. The beam is square and so sharply collimated you can make out the two tiny electrical connectors that slightly block the Cree XPG2 LED’s surface (the two dots on the left edge of the square). I believe the black lines around the LED itself are the back of the reflective material that’s pushing high-angle spillover light back onto the LED phosphorus where it becomes more light focused across the harbor.

RLT was invented by Dr. Kenneth Li, who’s working with Marinebeam and companies serving other niches, like bike lights. It is an unusual and promising technology to keep an eye on in the years to come.

Ed note: For more of Ben’s insights into marine electronics, go to panbo.com

Related

After years of quiescence in the wake of the Great Recession, iconic Island Packet is back with its new 349, a re-boot of the old Estero that not only looks great, but takes the Island Packet style of sailing performance to a new level. Design & Construction First among the many ...read more

At this past fall’s Annapolis Boat Show, SAIL magazine had a chance to corner Neel Trimarans founder Eric Bruneel and have him give us a tour of the accommodations aboard the new Neel 51, winner of the “Multihull over 50ft” category in the 2019 Best Boats contest. For a complete ...read more

The United States Coast Guard requires that all boats operating in coastal waters or on the high seas carry a selection of visual distress signals. Almost invariably, such signals include the pyrotechnic type, either handheld or fired from a flare pistol, but surely there are ...read more

It seems that we all struggle to make our start in life, searching for something that we would enjoy doing, something that not only challenges us today but will stay that way year after year, all the time giving great rewards along the way. Most things we are introduced to early ...read more

Stay Hooked Chain hooks on anchor snubber lines tend to fall off when you least want them to. Not so this latest example from Mantus. The M2 Chain Hook is secured to the chain by a simple elastic strap, so it won’t come off when the snubber loosens. Made from corrosion-resistant ...read more

When I boarded Fountaine Pajot’s new flagship, the Alegria 67, at the Cannes boat show last September, the first thing I noticed was that several groups of people were carrying on private conversations in separate lounging and seating areas in the saloon—that’s how big this boat ...read more

“Ready to take the dink ashore?” Never had those words invoked as much anxiety as when my husband, Jeff, and I first moved to the Pacific Coast. Why? Because we had exactly zero experience with dinghy surf landings, and the possibility of being flipped upside down along with our ...read more